


Steadfast

by pillar_of_salt



Category: Naruto
Genre: Iruka is the daimyo's adopted son, Multi, some people live and nobody dies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-24 14:27:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14956382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pillar_of_salt/pseuds/pillar_of_salt
Summary: Due to complicated and boring matters of statecraft that Kakashi didn’t bother keeping up with, Iruka had come back from his annual visit to the Land of Water betrothed to the water daimyo’s nephew.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Comments/feedback, as always, are much loved and keep the void at bay.

Due to complicated and boring matters of statecraft that Kakashi didn’t bother keeping up with, Iruka had come back from his annual visit to the Land of Water betrothed to the water daimyo’s nephew.

“What?” Kakashi exclaimed. “Why would you pick him?” 

“I didn’t exactly get much say in the matter!” Iruka yelled defensively. His pulled at his hair in frustration, making locks of it tuft out crazily as his hakama slid further down one shoulder, which unfortunately coincided with the arrival of Gai and Anko in the Hokage’s tea room.

 

“My apologies,” Gai said, turning faintly pink as he took in the scene. Anko looked gleeful.

 

Kakashi withdrew the hand he had stretched out awkwardly to pat Iruka on the back.

 

In the end, Genma handled the news with the most calm and sensibility. “The engagement would go a long way toward mending the territorial rift at Falling Water Pass,” he said, pouring them all tea. Looking at Iruka, he added, “Though Hiromu Natsume-sama himself may not inspire fondness of the heart.”

 

Iruka huffed. “He doesn’t inspire much of anything.”

 

“I still don’t see the point though,” Anko mused, stuffing another cake into her face. “It’s not like you two can have-”

 

“ _Anko,_ ” Gai and Genma both protested.

 

She gave them a beady eye, chin jutting out defiantly. “Whatever.”

 

“It’s fine,” Iruka sighed after an uncomfortable silence. “There’s only a few months until the wedding. Even if it’s more of a symbolic gesture, I want to be prepared to do my duty.”

 

“Umino-sama!” Gai wobbled out, at the same time Kakashi said, “Or you could just run away.”

 

Iruka blinked. “Beg pardon?”

 

Under the table, someone executed a warning kick to Kakashi’s foot. Genma’s expression grew aggressively neutral as he offered the plate of dango to Anko. Tilting his head, Kakashi shrugged lightly and ran a finger around the rim of his mug. “You could start a new life as a farmer. Maybe.”

 

“Grow soybeans and raise pigs?” A smile tugged at Iruka’s lips. “That could be fun. But I’d probably have to escape somewhere far away like the Land of Earth.”

 

“Earth’s not so bad. Very mild summers.”

 

“Not as nice as Konoha’s though.” That went without saying; it was well known throughout the Land of Fire that instead lounging about the daimyo’s palace, Umino Iruka preferred to spend his free time traipsing through Hidden Leaf doing chunin conditioning exercises in the dry heat, wrangling pre-genin children, and having tea with the Sandaime, much to his father’s consternation and Kakashi’s eternal despair.

 

*

 

As the fire daimyo’s ward, Iruka had been raised since the age of 7 to be graceful and well-mannered, deferential to authority and stern with subjects, to sign his name in beautiful calligraphy on important agreements and hang decoratively on the arms of the powerful - so it came as somewhat of a surprise when he announced that he wanted to participate in the chunin exams at 14. After a series of protracted arguments between the daimyo, the Fifth Hokage, and various representatives from other Lands, it was agreed that this would be a logistical and diplomatic nightmare, and alternative arrangements had been made for Iruka to train as part of a genin team but qualify through an independent examination. He spent 2 full years in Konoha. During that time, as part of Iruka’s unwanted personal security detail, Kakashi learned more about traps, tracking, loopholes in Hokage Tower’s security jutsu, Konoha’s secret tunnel system, and sneaking around using henges than he had post-ANBU recruitment.

 

Then Umino's team members got promoted; Iruka qualified and was summoned back to the capital. The whole affair had been deemed a tactical success in hindsight. Hidden Leaf felt a strengthened connection to the daimyo, who in turned milked the good publicity whenever possible. The next time Kakashi saw Umino Iruka, he was dressed in the long, ceremonial white robes of a feudal lord’s son, blooms of rich red leaves embroidered at the waist. He stayed for a week officiating the Spring Festival, distributing sweets to Konoha’s shrieking, delighted children and losing epically to Anko, Hayate, and Gai in a drinking game that involved stripping as punishment - but Kakashi mostly remembered how Iruka looked at the end of every night, hunched over a table among guttering candles, poring through scrolls on military strategy and foreign intelligence for a war that was supposed to be over.

 


	2. Chapter 2

There was less fanfare than Kakashi had expected; most of the formal negotiations and signings were wrapped up within in the week, handled remotely by a fleet of experienced delegates from both Fire and Water. As a show of good faith from the fire daimyo, Iruka would spend most of his time at his new spouse’s residence, with reduced traveling responsibilities as befit his new position.

“Why are you the woman in this scenario?” Kakashi asked. They were eating at Ichiraku between the lunch and dinner rushes - or rather, Iruka was devouring a bowl of ramen and enthusiastically gulping down sweet white tea while Kakashi thumbed through a copy of Icha Icha Paradise. Such was the vigilance demanded of a jounin on diplomatic escort duty.

Iruka covered his face. “Can you not say it like that?”

“Well it does look like you’re the one being given away,” Kakashi pointed out.

Iruka flipped him off before fiddling with his chopsticks. “It would be unreasonable to expect the opposite,” he said slowly. “Hiromu is a direct relation of the water daimyo, and has land of his own. The daimyo may favor me but he’ll never add my name to the official royal registrar, and I don’t own any property. On paper, I’m just a war orphan with too much social capital and no bloodline to back it up.”

Kakashi waggled his eyebrows. “Sexy.”

“Watch it, you’re talking to an almost-married woman here.”

“Even so.”

 

*

Yondaime’s death was bad; getting woken up by Rin after the funeral to learn that his layabout father had been chosen to succeed Minato was exponentially worse. Kakashi was fourteen when people stopped eyeing the Hatake residence with a mixture of resentment and fear, and started talking about how the Godaime was a war hero. It didn’t make things better that Hatake Sakumo blossomed from being in Konoha’s fickle good graces again; he cut his hair, re-opened the family compound to visitors, and spent long hours at Hokage tower rebuilding the fractious peace between the Hidden Villages. Kakashi elected to remain in the jounin barracks. He was picking up more A-class missions anyway; it made sense to live closer to the mission room and the hospital. Besides, there were public optics to consider: it wouldn’t do for anyone to insinuate that Kakashi was getting preferential treatment from being the Godaime’s son. By the time he turned sixteen, he’d merited a mention in no less than three bingo books. Kakashi bought a new mask to celebrate; Rin called him an idiot.

*

“But you. You two are -” Gai spluttered as they crouched in a cave on a cliff face north of the Land of Waves. Next to him, Inuzuka Kenshi clutched her sides in silent laughter.

“No,” Kakashi said.

 

The furrow between Gai’s brows deepened, as if he needed all his concentration to understand that just because you saved a guy from the occasional incompetent kidnapper or let him complete your non-classified mission reports because Iruka was more efficient and had better penmanship anyway, it didn’t mean you were carrying on a torrid love affair and discussing ill-fated plans to run away together. “My esteemed rival, I truly cannot compete with you in this,” Gai finally said, thumping his chest and sounding alarmingly choked up. “To put love aside for duty and suffer so stoically!”

“This is the greatest thing that’s ever happened in my life,” Inuzuka wheezed, wiping tears away from her face.

Kakashi struggled to come up with an appropriately professional response. “Ah,” he said at last. “You’ve misunderstood. There’s never been anything like that between Umino and I.” Ten minutes ago, he’d been running through a mental list of safehouses where they could access some much-needed supplies and wait out the missing Sound nin tailing them. With any luck now, the enemy would find their cave and interrupt Gai’s insane line of questioning.

“So you’ve never,” Gai plowed on, oblivious, “held tender feelings towards his lordship? Does his presence not kindle a youthful fire in the echoes of your heart?”

“Argh,” Kakashi said, just as a powerful blast of earth jutsu took out the wall next to them. Small mercies.

Back in Konoha, the Godaime murmured, "Good work on your mission", distracted, as he accepted the sealed scroll Kakashi handed over. "By the way, I’ve assigned you to Umino-sama’s shinobi escort when he travels to his wedding in four month’s time. You shouldn’t have any scheduled conflicts then.”

Kakashi nodded. He’d originally been placed on envoy security duty whenever the Mission Room grew irritated with his attempts to get A-classes while on medical stand-down; over time, the responsibility had stuck. “Is this related to our border dispute with the Land of Water?”

His father smiled ruefully. “The timing is an interesting coincidence, isn’t it?” he said, taking off his reading spectacles to polish them with one sleeve. “Well, Umino-sama has always been a rather sensible person.”

“Sure,” Kakashi said, “that.”

The Godaime raised one eyebrow. “Is there anything wrong with wanting to be sensible?”

Only if you desire something foolish, Kakashi thought. Outwardly, he shrugged. His father looked hesitant but didn’t press the issue; there was a line waiting outside his office.

*

It made no sense at all, though, was the thing: why anyone, even Gai, would have thought - well. Iruka was a pretty effusive person: wrestling with Asuma on the sparring grounds, lolling against Anko when they drank too much, draping an arm across Genma or Raidou’s shoulders as they swaggered away from whatever terrifying tale about the Forest of Death they’d regaled the pre-genin with. By comparison, Iruka was a little - prim, around Kakashi, or maybe it was the other way around. Besides the Icha Icha reading, Kakashi had to constantly remind himself not to goad Iruka too much, even if it did make him splutter entertainingly when Kakashi tricked him into taking shortcuts to Hokage tower through the red light district.

 

Watching Iruka shoot him deeply disgruntled expressions over the shoulder of his attache while the man explained the relative merits of cream vs pearl brocade for the wine cup ceremony, Kakashi pondered how it could've ever seemed as if they would be involved like - like that. Jiraiya's writing had always given the impression that there should be more moonlight and heaving bosoms involved.

Nara Shikaku dispatched him to Suna a week later - a dead drop, five days, no interference. The Sharingan got infected from sand debris though, which meant Danzo and Shikaku and his father all ran around fretting until Rin was dragged over from her job at the hospital to give him antibiotic eye drops in a secure underground ANBU facility.

“There are people waiting for me to sew their fingers back on,” she said dryly, handing him a square of gauze to soak up any stray moisture.

 

“My apologies,” Kakashi replied.

 

“I’m going to put the rest of the eye drops in your left side pack. Use it once a day for a week, and let me know if it’s getting worse or you experience any visual abnormalities,” Rin said, walking over to where Kakashi’s pants were draped over a radiator, depositing a fine layer of grit. She paused as she reached into the pocket. “What are - why do you have tea leaves in here?”

 

Kakashi closed his eyes. “Suna sells it for cheap. You add a bit of rock sugar to it. Very refreshing.”

 

“I...didn’t know you liked white teas.”

 

Kakashi cracked open his good eye. Rin’s brow was twitching. “What,” he said warily.

 

“Nothing," she said after a moment. "Don't forget about the eye drops."

 

**Author's Note:**

> I am obsessed with AUs in which Hatake Sakumo becomes the Fifth Hokage after Minato dies. OBSESSED.
> 
> This is the version in which post-second shinobi world war, the daimyo adopts a Konoha orphan as a gesture of goodwill. Iruka grows up as the daimyo's favored ward/diplomatic ambassador; as a result, he spends a lot of time hanging out in Hidden Leaf, which OF COURSE requires that he be closely guarded and escorted around by important jounin, which OF COURSE Kakashi, the Hokage's only son, gets roped into doing whenever he's on medical stand-down or in trouble for turning in illegible mission reports. IDK man. Blame it on this piece of fanart: https://kaxiru.tumblr.com/image/130836678362


End file.
